It's an interesting one, because it can be made about people involved in any number of activities in advanced industrial countries--and ends up raising more questions than it answers. Is old-fashioned, i.e., chemical photography a hobby of yours? You have to know about a little about light, film, chemistry, etc. Serious computer gamers build their own machines (so I'm told). Many "blue-collar" jobs require a great deal of specialized knowledge. And so on and so forth. So Chomsky is right--people aren't stupid, because they display intelligence in many others areas of their lives. But that only makes the question all the more puzzling: if people have the capacity to grasp complex concepts and large amounts of information in other areas, why not in politics?
No answers, but some clues:
Adorno wrote somewhere (in _Minima Moralia_, IIRC) that intelligence is a moral category. Doug wrote recently in LBO of "an active will not to know." I think lack of substantial leisure erodes the speculative capacities in people. Soundbite news and pervasive disinformation don't help either. Virginia Woolf wrote some amazing stuff about the destructive force of overwork among so-called professionals in her time. And so on.
Curtiss, feeling pessimism of the will as well as intellect right now
> I think Seth's right. Here's an account (from David Blue) of
> another comment about sports that Chomsky's frequently made:
> "Noam Chomsky, lately getting more attention for his political
> views that for what initially distinguished him as a genius -
> his linguistic theories, said something that I heard a couple
> of weeks ago....